ANAHEIM, Calif. -- Annia Hatch smiled bravely and held her emotions in check as long as she could. Then she broke down, her voice quavering and her face glistening with tears as she confronted reality.

"I'm pretty sad," she said Sunday, a day after her world championship dreams were dashed when a practice vault went horribly wrong.

Hatch completely tore the anterior cruciate ligament and meniscus in her left knee, leaving the United States without its No. 1 vaulter, a gold-medal threat at this week's World Gymnastics Championships. Doctors have told her rehabilitation could take at least four months.

"It's a big loss," team coordinator Martha Karolyi said. "I feel extremely sad."

Hatch, the 1996 world bronze medalist, joined reigning world balance beam champion Ashley Postell on the sidelines as the American women began preliminaries Sunday.

Postell had a severe case of stomach flu and was scratched Friday. She was bedridden four days with a fever.

"My strength isn't completely back, but I feel a lot better," Postell said. "This is the second day I was able to get out of bed, so I'm feeling pretty good about that."

At the same time, Hatch wiped her tears and runny nose with a wad of tissue provided by her husband and coach Alan Hatch.

"He was really calm," she said. "He said the most important thing is focus on the future and don't worry about what's going to happen."

The injury is a devastating blow to 25-year-old Hatch, a seven-time national champion in her native Cuba, who worked her way back to the top after moving to the United States and retiring for five years.

"Oh my God, poor Annia," Karolyi recalled thinking when Hatch went down. "We all were very proud of Annia coming back after the long interruption. She did everything she was supposed to do. She always was extremely disciplined."

The injury occurred on a Tsukahara with two twists, a vault Hatch had been performing for almost two years. Her husband said nothing looked awry as Hatch took off running and was in flight on the last of four vaults during training Saturday.

"My legs came apart, and it was a little confusing," Hatch said. "It doesn't hurt that much, and that's really important."

She is on crutches and is carried by her husband whenever she needs to negotiate stairs. Hatch will need surgery, then faces that long rehabilitation.

"The doctors are amazed because she does have a lot of function in the leg," Alan Hatch said. "It was just a freak accident. Life doesn't always deal the cards the way you expect them, otherwise everybody would be a poker player."

The world championships would have been Hatch's biggest meet since becoming an American citizen in December 2001. She led after the first day of the U.S. nationals in June, where she won the vault.

Her goal is to qualify for the Athens Olympics, barely a year away. But Hatch is already old by gymnastics standards.

"We have been assured that she'll be at Athens," her husband said.

For inspiration, Hatch needs only to look to Jason Gatson of the men's team, who injured his left knee in 1999 and again in 2001, when he was landing a vault.

"I hope I can meet him and ask him some questions and see how long it took him to come back and get ready," she said. "I'm going to fight through this, and I hope I can get 100 percent to represent the United States in the Olympics."